Chief Robert Tracy Chief Charles Coyle and Rep Del Taylor

Host BJ talks with Chief of St Louis City Police Robert Tracy, Public Safety Director Chief Charles Coyle, and State Representative Del Taylor about the recent Town Hall Stop The Violence Meeting. What action items will take place, what the community can expect, and how the community can get involved.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Heartfeet Saint Louis with a K Aholiday, bringing you the pulse of the
city. Hey, what's up withyou? Boy? DJ? The DJ
K a DJ holiday and today onthe show, I am privileged to say
this is probably the most safest placein town right now. And I've got

(00:22):
the chief of Police, UH,Chief Robert Tracy, who is new to
Saint Louis and welcome once again toSaint Louis. I know everybody's been telling
you that, you know, welcometo Saint Louis. Appreciate it, no
problem. Also got Chief Charles Caryo, who is the interim UH Safety Director

(00:44):
of Director of Public Safety. Howyou doing today, sir? I am
fantastic BJ. And of course wehave State Representative Dale Taylor in the building
who has been in here with meseveral times already. How you doing,
man, I am doing where all? And thank you again for inviting me
and these honored guests. Oh yeah, So the reason why I wanted to

(01:06):
have you guys come in to thestation is because there was a town hall
meeting back on April first, Loringbehold April fools Day. But it was
no April fools that you guys hadabout eighty seven to ninety people show up,
you know, so that tells usthat there are some importance of being
there, having a town hall meetingwhere people can come and kind of say

(01:30):
what's on their mind, and thenyou guys get the opportunity to respond to
them. But one of the thingsI'm an advocate of we we always have
these town hall meetings and we continueto have them, but you never ever
hear the follow up, like whatwas the accent, what are we're thinking
we should do? What was thetakeaway from that meeting? What was what

(01:55):
was the number one thing that peopletalked about, you know, that type
of day. How can you knowthe community be better? How can police
law enforcement be better? You know, we never ever hear that. It's
always the meeting, but there's nothingto say, here's what we's here's the
takeaway, here's the response to it. So I felt like talking with Representative

(02:16):
Dale Taylor, I was sharing withhim that I think it'll be a good
idea that we create a platform sowe can talk about some of the things.
You know what I mean that that'sgoing to be responded to and how
it's going to be, how it'sgoing to be dealt with and some of
the great new things that are comingout of the Saint Louis Metropolitan Police Department

(02:38):
and our Public Safety Division as well. So I just said, hey,
is it possible to get everybody kindof like around the table we just have
that conversation. So um, thankyou guys for taking out the time of
your day to stop being and talkwith me. So we're gonna start with
you, Representative Taylor. Why didyou feel it was import it in you

(03:00):
know, because you like the rookie. You know what I mean, You're
the rookie. You're the rookie.You said, hey, you know what,
We're gonna have this stab to violencetown hall meeting. Why did you
feel it was important to have thattown hall at the time that you did
it? Excellent question. I amthe rookie. I've only been on the
in fact today, I think isone hundred days on the job. And

(03:21):
when I was going door to doorand talking to people, whether I was
north of del Mar or south ofdel Mar, consistently people were asking me
about the crime, crime and SaintLouis. So I thought it only befitting
Dell we should host our first townhall on crime prevention on public safety.
We should actually get the people ofthe community together with our new leaders and

(03:43):
talk about what can we do,what can we do in a partnership to
address some of the violence, addresssome of the crime, and address some
of the public safety issues. SoI am really pleased, and BJ.
Part of that is thanks to youand I Heeartradio for helping get the word
out. And part of that Ithink was also just having superstars like Chief
Tracy and Chief Coyle on the diistoo, I talk. So it was

(04:04):
a well received, uh program,well received town hall. Uh. Everybody
was engaged on the topic and evenI have some great follow up items that
I'm doing, like this interview andother items. So thank you. Oh
no, you're so welcome. SoChief Charles Doyle interroom, Director of Public
Safety. You know, I don'tknow you, man. I think I

(04:26):
know you, but I don't knowyou. So are you are Saint Louis?
And are you Are you from California? Here, DJ, I am
a lifelong Saint Louis. Okay,you know the question coming. I know
the person is coming. That wasthe sent St. Louis and you know
that school brom Well, listen,listen, listen, listen, so that

(04:49):
you know there was only really onereal school. Oh and so I went
to that school in the Ville villYou know, um, the one that
wins state championships. Huh. Okay, you know about he just said something

(05:12):
the board he and I will notget. We're gonna get a loan because
from b we should get a longfine. You know something. Bowman,
come on, that sailor used toalways walk that dog. You know what
I mean. Listen, I havea lot of friends for Bowman. Okay,

(05:35):
So and I didn't blame them forthat. Okay, So let's talk
about you. I grown up inSaint Louis, Saint Louis Native some of
the board dogs. Okay, we'regonna we're gonna let you slide on that
one. But it's a good um. So let's talk about high school.
How did you get into law enforcement? Well, I'm not in the law.

(05:56):
What didn't get the laws enforcement?I've been for the last four decades,
I've been in the our service.I'm in a fire service again.
I am a deputy fire chief.I've been one since two thousand, so
I've been an upper management for twothousand. My whole adult life eja.
I have spent in public safety.I started at twenty one years old and

(06:18):
I am still doing it today becauseI have a passion for public safety.
See, when you enjoy what you'redoing, you don't really sit in time,
all right. I enjoy it eachand every day. So that is
it's my passion. And I've beenable to work and serve the people in
Saint Louis. So how you go, you become a servant more of a

(06:42):
servant. How you go and soyour goals or how you can serve your
people in your community better, howyou can make a difference in their lives.
And that's why we do the thingsthat we do. It's a great
start. I don't recall one badday at work. And what I mean
by that. We've had tragedies.Yes, yeah, we've had tragedies and

(07:06):
I've had to respond to them.But I'm doing the things that I love.
So I never had a bad dayat work. So I've enjoyed work.
When I wasn't there, I feltthat I was missing something And that
just talks about the passion in thisfield. Period. Okay, So any
republic safety director right right now,bigger responsibility, can you break down how

(07:30):
many entities or under that umbrella?You know what I mean, because I
know I will. Can you careto break that down? I will um.
The Department of Public Safety is alarger department of subjectate government, the
largest with the nine departments. Oneincludes the fire department, large department building,
a vision police department. But wehave Chacy Tracy here today to talk

(07:55):
about that xie xis as a department. When soon one wants to get a
liquor license, they go through thatdepartment. City SEEMA, which is a
city emergency management agency. So sothat your listeners understand when there is a
disaster in this city, it isSEEMA that kind of takes over house the

(08:16):
other departments to come in and dealwith that disaster. When we have flooding
issues, if a hurricane comes through, we implement SEEMA in our ero see.
So they do a lot of greatwork there. I'm also over corrections.
Another large department neighborhood stabilization officers.One of the ones that I'm really

(08:41):
really excited about is what's called theOffice of the Office of Violence Prevention.
And I'm saying that BJ because we'retalking about Saint Louis and I'm a Saint
Louis and and I wish something wasaround years ago like that for the people
that I grew up with. Soif you're from this city, that you

(09:01):
know, as you get older,you lose friends, yeah, and family
members, and you wish there wassomething there to put them on that right
path. So I'm excited about theOffice of Lunt Violence Prevention. It's the
commissioners will pick me. I thinkhe's doing an excellent job. And then

(09:22):
the last one is the oversight boardfor the police department and corrections. Those
are things that have been in thenews lately. I am glad to be
here to work with them. There'sone for the correction center, for the
detention center, and one for thepolice department oversight. So those are the

(09:43):
three department very very large departments.Keeps you busy. But one of the
things I don't want to get toofar without mentioning we are hiring. Oh
okay, your listeners need to knowwe are hiring. We have over five
hund a's available. We just needthe people that want to be a part
of public safety to help us makeour city a safer place. Okay,

(10:09):
so you mentioned hiring. I'm sureyou have like a website or something I
can go get like an application,and you can get an application. And
the easiest place for you to bedirected to is our Department of Personnel.
But I'm gonna I'm gonna do somethingelse. I'll give you their number.
Their telephone number is three one foursix two two thirty three ninety one.

(10:31):
Now you're gonna hit my office whenyou call that, so let me change
that. You can call for thisalert three one four nine oh six four
two two five. I'm gonna saythat again, three one four nine oh
six four two two five. Andlater as we're targeting, I'm gonna explain

(10:52):
to you where this comes from,and it can't. Actually this number and
this alert for Department of Public Safetycame from the town hall, the town
hall meeting. The town hall isthe one who help us decide to put
this in place. So I thinkthat's important and I like to read it
one more time. Three one fournine oh six four two two five.

(11:16):
You can be directed for anything inpublic safety by calling that number. It
actually will be an alert if you'dlike to. We will begin to send
your alerts on things taken place inpublic safety so that you're aware man,
I'm going to jump here because oneof the things that I got out of
the town hall was that people wantedto know what's being done with public safety.

(11:43):
How do I share my concerns?A number of people that I was
able to engage with there would comeup later to share concerns that they wanted
to be private. So this isthat avenue that we've created the so that
will help them get that done.So in other words, if they hit
this number or whatever, it's aprivate thing. They ain't got to be

(12:05):
all warried, scared and talking aboutsomebody gonna come back, and you know,
knocked me upside my head because Ididn't share of information that should be
shared. No, they're not gonnabe They shouldn't be concerned. Uh,
we're hoping to take whatever their concernsis. But it really is for them
to get alerts from public safety.If we're doing something new. Oh they're

(12:26):
gonna be in their community doing something. It's for them to have that alert
so they know what's taking place inpublic safety. Got it, got it
all right. When we talk aboutpublic safety, we talk about crime,
we talk about it, you know, you know, law enforcement and things
of that nature. So This iswhere Chief River Tracy comes in. How
you doing? Man? All right? How you doing? I'm doing grein

(12:48):
So you know, I know Ialready know you not from Saint Louis,
but so you and I might getalong because you know, you know,
you're not from rivalry school. Soyou and I probably gonna best friends.
And we you know chief, youknow chief over there, he and I
just ain't gonna get a long.Well that's good because you got a table
between you, you and I andnext each other. So all right,

(13:11):
and seeing we got the right referee. Ya, this is the chief.
Yes, welcome to the city.Man. All right, so you're from
I'm from New York. I wasborn and race in the Bronx. You
know what's he's got that accent?Yes, you know what I'm saying.
He's got that Yeah. You knowwhat is that? Is that like Robert
de Niro is? Is that?You know? Is that kind of like

(13:35):
Alan? I have no idea.He plays a lot of actors. I'm
just who I am. So youknow, if I was as good as
him, I'd be making movies rightnow. You know what, You're going
to be making a lot of movieshere in Saint Louis because as I've known,
you know, he recently got hereand it seemed like the camera is
always on. Let's talk a littlebit about your background, Beef briefly,

(13:56):
Brooklyn, New York born and raceor a different different part of the country,
well born and raised in the Bronx. Second generation police officer. My
father, My father was a Bronxhomicide detective for well over thirty years.
That's what led me into into thisprofession, following his footsteps, and as

(14:16):
director Coyle has talked about, Idid start very young, a twenty year
old young man, started out walkinga footposts in the sound Bronx, coming
out of the NYPD academy, servedtwenty four years in the NYPD, moved
up the ranks sometime in the privatesector. Then I was a chief in
Chicago for five years, some backback time in private sector again, and

(14:37):
then finished almost six years in thecity of Wilmington, which was dubbed Murdertown,
USA, and left that place betterthan where I found it, and
we worked together with the community.And I'm looking to do some of these
same strategies and have the same successeshere in Saint Louis. And I know
we can get it done, andit starts with these community meetings and being
open, transparent, letting the peopleknow, working in cooperation because this can't

(15:00):
be This is a collective effort forpublic safety. Everything that the director talked
about, everything the representatives is goingto get into the town halls. We
in policing have to be a greatpartner because we got to do this together
to get to where we need tobe. Now, we were talking a
little bit earlier before we got intothe interview. One of the biggest takeaways
from the town hall was reckless drivingin the temp tags. You know,

(15:26):
so, um, is there somethingthat plays that you guys are beginning to
do or any thoughts on how touh to take care of his reckless driving,
especially these temp tags. I'm sorry, I just don't know how a
person can can have a car andand and and and they ride down the
street and they they temp tags expiresince twenty nineteen and this twenty twenty three.

(15:54):
So I don't, I don't knowhow think I don't. I don't
get that, Yeah, I andBJ It frustrates me at times I drive
down the street and I see itfeels like one out of every three or
five cars. But I will saythat your state legislature, in the House
of Representatives, we actually debate itand we pass the first stage of a

(16:17):
bill so that when you buy acar, the sales tax can be rolled
into the purchase, into the financingof that car. A lot of folks
will argue, oh, I can'tget my car register because I don't have
the money for the sales tax.Well, your state legislature is trying to
do We're trying to do our part. We hear you, we understand,
and it's a problem all over thestates. So we're trying to pass that
bill so that when you buy ayou know, when you buy any car,

(16:38):
new car, used car, thesales tax can be rolled into the
purchase. So that little bit mayhelp a little bit for some people.
But yes, it is a bigproblem, and I think it's something that
all of us are going to haveto address, the state legislature, our
chief of police and everyone. Okay, all right, So so BJ,
I've been to dozen super community meetingsand especially beat with talk about this town

(17:00):
hall. But one of the topconcerns has been reckless driving, running red
lights, temporary tags, and Ithink this is phenomenon that has happened all
throughout the country. So I couldtalk from a different perspective from from three
other cities, and I think withthe unprecedented times of what has happened in
the last couple of years, wehave pulled away. Only because of the

(17:25):
pandemic. We had to make surethat we weren't doing as many traffic stops.
There was distractions with civil arrests theafter the murder of George Floyd.
So there's a lot of distractions whatthe police can and can't do. And
right now we're coming back to normalcy, and so what we have to do
this is behavior. This is notwe're not looking to we're actually coming back

(17:45):
to when I say traditional police workbecause of the distractions are now behind us
and now we can move forward together. And what we have to do is
make sure that we look to changebehavior. Our motor vehicle violations are up
since I've come, it's become apriority, and we're looking to change behavior.
We're not looking to hurt people inthe pocket. But at the same

(18:06):
time, you have to we haveto make sure that we're addressing these things
because it has gotten away from us, not just here in Saint Louis,
but it has happened across the UnitedStates. I talked to other chiefs and
it seems to be the number oneconcerned throughout the United States. And we
have a great role. First,we need public service announcements. We also
need our representatives coming in and talkingabout how we can talk about temporary tags.
But even temporary tags, and Idon't know if it was done in

(18:30):
Missouri, but I know in thelast state that I lived in, they
suspended temporary tags allowing people because theycouldn't get the services during the pandemic.
So everybody was doing workarounds. Nowthat we're coming back to normal, we
gotta change behavior. We got toaddress these things. And it's not going
to happen overnight, because this behaviordidn't happen overnight. The emboldenment of reckless
driving. Yeah, one of thethings that I want to point out that

(18:52):
I don't I don't know, Ijust follows under public safety or not.
But one of the things in thecity, and I have to say this
is our traffic lights. I don'tknow what the deal is, but they
are like the longest lights in themirth. I mean, I'm doing real,

(19:14):
I mean Seriously, you get towhat is that king You go to
kings Outway in del mar right,and you go that's north, right,
You're going north on kings Otway.The very next light. You will sit
there for almost five minutes and it'sjust a little side street and nobody's coming.

(19:34):
And I'm being honest with y'all,I'm not sitting at that light at
three o'clock in the morning and waiton that light. I'm taking off.
I'm I mean, I'm just beingreal. I'm being honest. I'm gonna
take off because I'm sitting there goingI'm not gonna sit here in my nights,
fucking just sitting and just wasn't coming, and possibility of carjacking. You

(19:56):
know. One of the things thatI heard in the town hall was Chief
Tracy was telling us about there istechnology out there. There's a variety of
different technologies that will help us withcrime prevention. I know because I'm an
engineer. There's technology that will helpus with traffic studies and traffic flow.
So that's one of the takeaways thatI have from the town hall is to

(20:17):
actually sit down with the Chief andlet's look at some of the different technology
solutions that we should be evaluating inthe city, and then I can take
those back to the House of Representativesand lobby for those and try and champion
you know, Saint Louis needs thisor this is a technology that's proven based
on the chiefs experience. So ChiefI took that one away from the town
hall from yeah, and I willtell you that there's everything's on the table.

(20:38):
Some of the best ideas do comefrom these community meetings, and so
looking at what the traffic engineer andwhy we have this, there's always best
practices and standards, but there's alsowhy all the slights that long. Let's
take a look at that. Isomewhat I do agree with you, and
then I'll talk to you about youknow what the technology we used to have

(20:59):
read light cameras here and one thingwith red light cameras. I think there
was a lawsuit that came in itwas unconstitutional, but I think the way
it was rolled out made it unconstitutional. Other states have made it a civil
fine and where it's the owner ofthe car gets a summons, there's no
points on the license and they're responsiblefor that vehicle whoever they lend it too.
So therefore they're responsible for that civilfine. And I'll tell you the
truth. You know, I havefive children and four of them are driving,

(21:22):
and a couple of those cars areregistered to my name. I get
that summons and I will be takingcare of it very quickly, and I
will behavior. So. So thething is when those things happen and we're
looking at speed cameras, we're looking, we're looking at everything. Everything's on
the table because I think it shouldbe. And you know what a set
of fresh eyes. And then youalso have Director Coil coming in as the
head of public safety. You havea set of fresh eyes in both places

(21:47):
that you know, everything's on thetable. We're not going to be holding
the status quo. We're going tolook at culture and say, hey,
is this the right thing to door should we change it? So that's
what we're looking at. Okay,we have the part that handles complaints like
that. Now you can your livesa number I just gave you. It's
not our department, but we canpass it on. But there's a Citizen

(22:07):
Service Bureau that is in place totake any complaint that a citizen has,
So if you were would call themand tell them to an intersection, then
we can have the correct department totake a look at that. And I'm
going to pass yours on so thatsomeone's looking at the intersection you just gave
us. Yeah, see if itcan be if there's an adjustment, if

(22:30):
it's a malfunction. It may notwell, I mean, our street department
is an excellent department. It maybe a malfunction with that light that they're
not aware of. So and that'sthe one thing that you just but and
that's the reason why I brought thatup. You just brought up a great
point. People don't know how tolet you guys know when there's something with

(22:51):
a traffic light, you know whatI mean. They don't know who to
call. You know what I mean? Because if you if you, if
you get the I feel like this, if the lights are right, then
less people we're probably run the light. I don't know if that's the truth,
but I think that in a lotof people mind. You come up
on the light, You're going,I know, I'm gonna see that this
life forever and in our time.And I'd be like, man, I

(23:15):
ain't said it long enough. I'mgoing And if it's three o'clock in the
morning. I'm sorry, I'm beingopen transparent. I'm taking off because I
don't want to be as what isknown as a city duck. And that's
not just in the city. Ido it in the county. If if
I'm in the county and like justI'm sitting and I'm I'm by myself,
it's dark, you know, no, no no other cards on the road,

(23:40):
I do the if we call itthe three sixty look around. I'm
taking off, you know what Imean, I'm taking off. So uh,
as we talk about the reckless drivingthough, uh, how do you
guys feel that needs to be handled. I know we talked about the temp
tags with them. You know we'regonna roll it, said to them,

(24:00):
I didn't. I don't even knowwhy they don't roll it into price price
in the car. I do thatanyway. I get my sales tax finance
when I bought my car. Anyway, So I don't know why it's not
an automatic thing. But anyway,reckless driving, I mean because it is.
I don't know if it was thepandemic or whatever, but it seemed
like people just started driving faster aswe were in the pandemic. I mean,

(24:23):
am I saying that, right,I mean yeah, And I think
where word got out is that,you know, you know, I've worked
in urban police departments, but ourpartners in county and actually a state police
that do the highways, you know, we were also encouraged. We had
to separate from the public as well, because we did not want to transmit,

(24:44):
transmit or get sick ourselves during thepandemic. So that's that's interaction that
you would be having handing out asummons or trading giving something to someone else,
and then if an officer gets sick, he could take the whole platoon
out and then public safety really woulddressingly be hurt. So we had a
prioritize things in policing, and wordgot out that we were not giving those
summages because we also had to isolatefrom individuals, and therefore we really cut

(25:10):
down on moving violations, and thereforeword got out. And I think now
that the pandemics over, the behaviorhas changed and we have to we have
to also address the behavior to bringit back to where it used to be,
and it really is. We couldpull a lot more cars over and
you know what, we can alsogive warnings. We don't always have to
give a summons, and so thething is we have that discretion as police

(25:30):
officers, and I think that's whatwe need to get to. And my
officers are coming out of this inmy last department, in this police department,
and we have to start getting backbecause the last two years we've been
doing things a certain way. We'recoming back to normalcy. And then it
starts with the top. What isthe direction coming from your leadership? Well,
my community, my community, whichis Saint Louis, is asking me

(25:52):
to address this. So I willmake sure that our officers. They will
our officers very very good, tellus what you want, what you need,
what the community needs. And that'swhy it's so important at this community
meeting and all community meetings that ourofficers are in those community beings so they're
hearing it firsthand what the community wantsbecause that's who we're in partnership and who
we serve. And it's better tohear from the community. They're going to

(26:14):
hear from me all the time,but I want them to hear from the
community so they don't think it's justme and my ideas. I'm working together
with the community. When they hearthat firsthand, that motivates them to say,
Okay, this is what the communitywants and we're working in partnership.
Okay, So I think you guysare doing an amazing job of getting out
to the community because, like Isaid, again, I didn't know there

(26:37):
was a number that you can callto talk about the life. Thank you
for saying that you're gonna take alook at that, because I was like,
that's crazy that you have to sitat these lights. And I know
you guys are like, he's stilltalking about this light. But anyway,
let's let's talk about just crime ingeneral. Do we have an ideal where
we are in crime for twenty twentythree versus twenty twenty two, or do

(27:00):
we have any tribe of updates,new update or its crimes starting to you
know, go down or is itstill getting off the change? Yes,
and it's very timely because we justhad our public safety meeting and we were
reporting out to the administration in themayor. Myself and Director Coil just came
from that meeting. So I don'teven have to look at the numbers because
I see the numbers every day.I read them, we follow and we

(27:22):
track them and in a COMPSTPT methodologythat I'm bringing in from other police poemps.
It's been successful as business managed principlesapplied to police work. The numbers
are trending in the right direction.Still early. We're down almost fifteen percent
in homicides from last year, andwe're also down thirty percent from where were
two years ago. The biggest thingpart one crimes, which is the major

(27:44):
crimes. We are down one percentoverall for the city, but we'd be
down twenty percent if it was notfor the hy ends and the key is
being stolen because of the defect inthat they have for mitigation of theft,
and that's being so we're up onehundred percent and caught deft because of those
vehicles. Now the mayor has alsoput a lawsuit in with other cities to

(28:07):
sue the manufacturers to make sure theycan help us out because it does take
our time away from other things wecan be doing. Why we're going around
after stolen vehicles that might not havebeen stolen it if they had to proper
devices in. So we're down,we would be down over twenty percent.
So things are going the right direction. It's still early, and you know
what, and it's the right direction. We have of a lot of work

(28:29):
to do. We have certainly havechallenges in the city, and I know
these offices we can have the beststrategies in the world, but if we're
not transparent and talking to the community, we won't have long term sustainable success.
Okay, let me ask all thethree of you guys, and you
guys can give your own individual answers. What can the community do of it
than just sit and just be inthe you know, around the table at

(28:52):
home complaining what can they do?I mean, you know what I mean,
what if something they can do?Well? As we forced the trusts
and they meet us and they seeus more often, the cooperation of the
information of things that are going onin the community. God forbid, we
have a homicide. One of thethings family wants closure and we want to
make sure that the person doesn't goout and commit another homicide. We're getting

(29:15):
cooperation from the community that are comingforth and help us solve those cases in
this city. We're probably where citiesare usually at a homicide clearance rate,
that's when we arrest the individual.Nationally average is about sixty percent. Urban
cities is about forty percent. We'reat eighty percent. That shows me that
people are cooperating. We have gooddetectives, we're out there and we're making

(29:38):
sure we could bring closure to thosefamilies to make sure that person doesn't commit
another crime, especially a heinous crimeas homicide. So that is showing me
that the public's coming forward. AndI think it's because as we continue to
build a relationship, they'll help reducecrime because we're going to be working together
they try to make this the safestcity. I think. You know,

(29:59):
one of the things that we discussedat the town hall, which I think
is really critical, is how dowe use our nine one one system.
Okay, that's important. Many peoplehave called and been placed on hold.
We're currently working on that and weneed the citizens help with that. We
need the citizens help to utilize itfor emergencies only, not non emergencies.

(30:22):
If they have a non emergency,they can call a number for that non
emergency which is three one four twothree one one two one two, but
it ties up the nine one onesystem. So if they're time of the
number nine one one system, anactually emergency can't get through. There's a

(30:45):
lot of work going on with thenine one one system. The first phase
that we did was to move ourMS dispatchers to nine one one Center,
so they're in the same building.When we begin to hire more, we're
going to be cross training them atsome point. The third phase is to

(31:07):
actually, and this is something Director, I mean Representative Teller and I have
been discussing for a while, isto create what's called a peace up you
know, okay, the public safetyaccess point where we'll have police department dispatchers,
fire department dispatchers, and MS dispatchersin the same building with the twenty

(31:29):
four seven daycare all right, wow. We believe that's going to assist us
with retention, with hiring and retentionwith young officers because daycare is important to
everyone who has children. So that'sthe third phase that's down the road.
Thanks to Congresswoman Bush Cory Bush,we received a federal grant to help move

(31:53):
through the process with nine one one. We still have a lot of work
to do, but we have beenshipping away at this, shipping away at
this and so once we and whenI talked about those vacant jobs, many
of them were in I dispatched themare and so we do need people to
apply. If you need a job, call that number I gave you three

(32:15):
one four nine oh six four twotwo five. We can set you on
the path to set getting your application, in getting you trained, and getting
you in a career. So thoseare important things and the community can help
in doing both of those. Nottying up nine and one with nine emergencies

(32:37):
right, using it for emergencies andthen helping us find people to feel positions
is one message I could give youtoday, BJ, is we need people
to apply for these jobs. Excellent, excellent, BJ. My perspective on
crime, you know a little different. I'm a state Rep. And again

(32:58):
I'm a native Saint Louis, fiftysix years in Saint Louis, and I
know summer is coming, it's goingto get hot, and when it gets
hot, it gets crazy here.It's gonna get hot in here. So
that's another reason why I wanted todo this town hall right now, so
that people can meet our new Chiefof Police, Chief Tracy, so that
they can meet our new Public SafetyDirector, Chief Coyle. But my perspective

(33:20):
on crime is that you know,there are triggers, there are things.
People don't just wake up in themorning and think, oh, I want
to go and do something. Now, what brought you to that point?
It's joblessness, it's housing issues,it's mental health and BJ That's why you
and I spoke with Sal Martinez.That's why we had Sal on here with
Employment Connections three one four three threethree jobs. Sal hits it right and

(33:44):
you know, right dead center.Call Employment Connections. They have job placement,
they have job counseling, they havehousing assistance, they have mental health.
Sal will help us with all ofthose other things. It's getting hot
in Saint Louis. If you seesomebody that needs challenge, lenges or needs
help, you call and find outsome more and then get them to call

(34:05):
three one four three three three jobsfive six two seven three three three jobs
three three three jobs. Call EmploymentConnections now so that we can help some
of these young folks get jobs,get job counseling, get interviewing skills,
get on the job, and nowthey have something else to do with themselves.
If they need housing, Employment Connectionswill help with the housing. Do

(34:25):
you need mental counseling or any othertype of help. These other wraparound services
will help us to reduce and lowerthe crime so that we can help Chief
Tracy, keep our stats on theright direction. Well, gentlemen, man,
Wow, Anyway, I hope thisis not the last that you guys
come in the studio and we havethis particular conversation. We'd like to have

(34:49):
you guys come in each quarter tocome in and get updates so we can
get this information out to the listenersso they kind of know exactly what's going
on in our city. Chief Tracy, uh, Chief Dog Coil that we'll
get along. Representative town Taylor.Hey, man, you know what I

(35:19):
gotta say this. All of youguys are rookies, because all of y'all
a new t your job rookie.So hey, I just want it.
Like I said, I want tokeep a relationship going. But we can
come in pretty much every quarter andhave these conversations and talk about all the
good updates. But I just wantto thank you guys for taking our time
today to come in. I appreciateit. BJ. Before week we end

(35:40):
to some the book Dog he gotto have last for I don't know what.
It may just happen that way,I don't know. But before we
end this, avery be remiss ifI didn't think Pastor and first Lady Press
yes, and continue Christian Church forhosting the town hall. That was a

(36:00):
big step, but I want tomake sure that they know we appreciate them
for doing it. And with thatwe're done. All right. Thank you
heartfeat Saint Louis with j A TA K A Fiji holiday, bringing you
the pulse of the city.